Iran is currently conducting research and development on nuclear weapons, an exiled opposition group claimed Friday in Paris - identifying two locations near Tehran where such work is allegedly taking place.

"This site and centre are the locations for research and production of the explosion system of an atomic bomb, which is one of the most important aspects of the mullahs' nuclear weapons project," Mehdi Abrishamchi, an official of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said, referring to Iran's clerical leaders.

In contrast, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Islamic state probably ended weapons-related work in 2003.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has received intelligence information indicating that such research could have been conducted in the past, but has not drawn a final conclusion to confirm this.

The ongoing efforts were being conducted by an entity called Research Centre for Explosion and Impact (MEFTAZ), affiliated with the Defense Ministry and housed in an unmarked building in Tehran, Abrishamchi said at a press conference.

Among other tasks, that centre was working on computer simulations, he said.

The Paris-based NCRI also alleged that there was a second site near Sanjarian village for building technical components and testing high explosives.

In nuclear weapons, high explosives are placed around a core of nuclear material and triggered simultaneously in order to implode the core and cause a nuclear chain reaction.

Iranian officials have told the IAEA that they experimented with simultaneous detonators in the past, but said the work was done for civilian rather than military use.

A diplomat close to the Vienna-based agency said its inspectors had not found anything suggesting ongoing Iranian efforts in that field.

Tehran's leaders say they have no interest in nuclear energy except for electricity generation and other peaceful uses.

The Paris-based NCRI made its allegations one week before Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are scheduled to hold talks with Iran in Geneva, where the world powers expect a serious response to their concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

The NCRI is considered the political wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a group that seeks to overthrow Iran's clerical regime.

In 2002 the NCRI played an important role in revealing Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran had kept secret from IAEA inspectors. Later claims regarding Iran's nuclear activities failed to be equally substantial.

Abrishamchi said the information was collected by dozens of sources of the Muhajedin in Iran.

The United States has known for years of the existence of a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment facility, a senior U.S. official stated Friday.

The official stated that the facility is well-hidden and well-defended and that Iranian officials admitted to building the facility after they discovered that its existence was known.

The U.S. source said that Iran discovered that U.S. intelligence had compiled a dossier on the facility and the Islamic Republic then sent a letter to the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) disclosing the existence of the facility.

A different U.S. official has stated that next week's meeting in Geneva will be a critical opportunity for Iran to demonstrate its willingness to cooperate with the West. The official added that in the coming weeks, the United States will lead the West in putting forth a policy of "pressure and involvement", which if it fails, will lead to more harsh measures against the Islamic Republic.

The IAEA earlier Friday demanded access to the second plant, which it was informed of by Tehran on Monday.

Two officials told the Associated Press on Friday that Iran revealed the existence of the second plant in a letter sent to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire confirmed receipt of the letter, saying the agency was informed that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction. The letter said that the plant would not enrich uranium beyond the 5 percent level suitable for civilian energy production. That would be substantially below the threshold of 90 percent or more needed for a weapon.

Iran told the agency that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility, he said. In response, the IAEA has requested Iran to provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible.

So with all due respect to Tutu, Israel and the Jewish people are clear about the lesson of the Holocaust: that never again will the destiny of our people be placed in the hands of others. For 2,000 years, Jews depended on pity; they had no land and no army, and what they got in return were inquisitions, pogroms and the Nazi genocide. The Holocaust also taught us that freedom and justice come to those who are prepared to fight for them.

Tutu, a longtime critic of Israel, recently again unloaded on the Jewish state. The scene was Israel's security fence in the Arab community of Bilin, in the West Bank. It is there that activists gather every week to protest a barrier that deeply inconveniences and disrupts Palestinian life. Tutu said the activists reminded him of Gandhi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and King, who took up the struggle of a black woman too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus. No mention was made of the hundreds of deadly Palestinian suicide bombings that led to the erection of the barrier, or that this nonlethal defense has thwarted multiple attacks, saving Jewish and Arab lives.

Tutu then added this admonition: "The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns."

Because Tutu invoked the Holocaust, it would be instructive to learn what Gandhi, in his own words, thought about the Jews, Nazis and Palestine. In 1938, just after Kristallnacht, when the Nazis systematically destroyed Germany's and Austria's synagogues, Gandhi wrote these shameful words:

"The German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. ... [Hitler] is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. ... If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.

"Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. ... If I were a Jew and were born in Germany ... I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon. ... And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy. ... The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant."

So after urging Europe's Jews to joyfully accept the Nazi onslaught, here was Gandhi's advice to the 600,000 Jews living in the Holy Land:

"The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the Earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs. ... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. ... The Palestine of the biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. ... They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer ... themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration. ... I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of nonviolence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."

Clearly, Gandhi's words serve as his South African disciple's bible for today's Israel-Palestinedispute.

But it is hard to understand how Tutu can invoke King's views as a rationale for his own on Israel. As Georgia Rep. John Lewis wrote in a 2002 column, King "consistently reiterated his stand on the Israel-Arab conflict, stating 'Israel's right to exist as a state in security is uncontestable.' And ... less than two weeks before his tragic death, he spoke out with clarity and directness: 'Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. ... Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.' "

King also had this to say in 1968 about anti-Zionism at Harvard University: "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews; you are talking anti-Semitism."

Today, Gandhi's influence is still keenly felt globally. Yet it is interesting to note that India today rejects its spiritual founder's worldview. A nuclear power, it has adopted Israel's approach to threats from suicide bombers and other terrorists.

So with all due respect to Tutu, Israel and the Jewish people are clear about the lesson of the Holocaust: that never again will the destiny of our people be placed in the hands of others. For 2,000 years, Jews depended on pity; they had no land and no army, and what they got in return were inquisitions, pogroms and the Nazi genocide. The Holocaust also taught us that freedom and justice come to those who are prepared to fight for them.

Rabbi Marvin Hier is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the center.

A Swedish TV program to be aired Wednesday claims that top Vatican officials knew that an ultraconservative British bishop was a Holocaust-denier when his excommunication was lifted in January.

The program, which was obtained by The Associated Press prior to broadcast, could add new fuel to the controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson.

Jews and Catholics worldwide were outraged after Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Williamson, along with three other ultraconservative bishops, in an attempt to bring dissidents back into the mainstream church.

The order, dated Jan. 21, came as Sweden's SVT aired an interview recorded two months earlier in which Williamson said he didn't believe any Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.

Vatican officials have said they didn't know about the interview at the time. Benedict later condemned Williamson's remarks and spoke out against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Yet in a follow-up report, SVT says the Vatican had been informed of Williamson's Holocaust-denial shortly after the interview was recorded in November. It doesn't suggest, however, that the pope knew about the remarks.

The program singles out Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who had been leading efforts to heal the schism with the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X. The Vatican announced in July that Castrillon Hoyos was stepping down after reaching the customary retirement age of 80.

The SVT program says Sweden's Catholic diocese informed the apostolic nuncio  the Vatican envoy to Sweden  about Williamson's remarks and that he in turn informed Vatican officials, including Castrillon Hoyos.

"Naturally we passed all the information that we had on to the nuncio. After that I don't really know how it moved along," Stockholm Bishop Anders Arborelius told SVT.

In a statement Wednesday, the diocese reiterated that it had sent a report about the content of interview to the Vatican in November 2008.

The SVT program says the Vatican envoy, Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, confirmed off-camera that he contacted several people in the Vatican, including Castrillon Hoyos, immediately after receiving the report in November.

Tscherrig did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

In a statement commenting on the program, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was "absolutely without foundation to claim or even insinuate that the pope was informed in advance of Williamson's positions."

"The pope has explained the reason for the remission of the excommunication as a gesture in favor of church unity and at the same time showed the total groundlessness of the accusations that he (the pope) showed a lack of respect for the Jewish people," Lombardi said.

Castrillon Hoyos had been head of the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, which was charged with reconciling with the Society of St. Pius X. In announcing his retirement on July 8, the Vatican said that effort would now be headed by Cardinal William Levada, the highest-ranking U.S. churchman in the Vatican hierarchy.

Levada heads the Vatican's powerful orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed for decades before becoming pope in 2005.

"(The pope) recognized with candor the limits of internal and external Vatican communication, and gave a new status to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, just to guarantee a better and safer way in dealing with matters relating to relations with traditionalists," Lombardi said in the statement Wednesday.

"To relaunch the 'Williamson case' can only serve to continue to create confusion for no reason," he said.

In last year's Swedish interview, Williamson denied that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He said about 200,000 or 300,000 were murdered and none were gassed.

Williamson later apologized for his remarks, saying he would never have made them if he had known "the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise." But he did not say his comments had been erroneous, nor that he no longer believed them.

Facing a rising wave in settler violence, the IDF Central Command has established a new rapid-response security team that will be responsible for cracking down on right-wing extremists and preventing violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

Last week, right-wing activists threw a Molotov cocktail at security forces in the West Bank illegal outpost of Havat Gilad. On Tuesday night, IDF jeep tires were punctured by spikes left on the road leading to the settlement of Yitzhar and on Wednesday, Border Police jeep tires were punctured by spikes left on a road near Havat Gilad.

The IDF could not say for certain that the spikes were scattered on the road by the settlers.

"There is without a doubt a rising level of violence in recent weeks," an officer in the Central Command said. "The idea behind the unit is to provide a rapid response to prevent friction and violence between settlers, security forces and Palestinians."

Tension has been on the rise in West Bank settlements - particularly in northern Samaria - in recent months since Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced plans to evacuate some 23 illegal outposts throughout the territories.

"The settlers crossed red lines. They have uprooted Palestinian trees, kicked a Border Police officer and threw a Molotov cocktail at security forces," the officer said. "We fear that this trend could lead to more violence and possibly terror attacks."

The establishment of the new unit was ordered by OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni. It will be comprised of border policemen but will be subordinate to the IDF.

"The idea is to have a force that can deploy in certain areas within a matter of minutes," an IDF source said. "This way, we can hopefully prevent violent incidents from escalating out of control."

The IDF has difficulty collecting evidence in the West Bank for violent crimes against Palestinians and security forces, and therefore rarely arrests those responsible.Last week, for example, a Palestinian claimed to have been shot by a settler, but the IDF and Police could not obtain sufficient evidence to corroborate the story and track down the shooter. No one has been arrested for the Molotov cocktail attack last week, either.

Due to this difficulty, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has also been increasing its operations within settlements and right-wing circles in an effort to collect intelligence on instigators, which could later be used in court to indict a suspect or issue an administrative detention order.

Those who think the bad old days of European Anti-Semitism are passed, should think again. Babi Yar was the site of the brutal massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in the Ukraine in 1941. The Nazi invaders could not have done it without the willing help of locals. Of course, the Ukrainians had already done their share in the murder of about 200,000 Jews in the Pogroms of the Russian Civil War. Ukrainians have steadily denied their role in these massacres and are anxious to cover up the traces. Now there is a popular plan to turn the site of Babi Yar into a resort area with hotels. To be sure, there are some decent people who are opposed.

The opening line from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's most famous poem, "Babi Yar" - "No monument stands over Babi Yar" - may once again be an accurate reflection of reality if Kiev's municipality carries out its plan to build a hotel on the memorial site of one of the most notorious massacres of Jews during the Holocaust.

On September 29 and 30, 1941, German SS troops, supported by other German units and local collaborators, gathered 33,771 Jewish civilians at the ravine outside Kiev and murdered them with machine guns.

Attempts to commemorate the massacre after the war were thwarted by the Soviet Union.

Yevtushenko, a Russian poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist and film director born July 18, 1933, was politically active during the Khrushchev Thaw. He wrote what would become perhaps his most famous poem, "Babi Yar," in 1961.

Noting the absence of a memorial in Babi Yar, the poem denounces the Soviet distortion of history concerning the Nazi massacre of Kiev's Jews as well as anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

Soccer tourism

After the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine set up a monument on the site.

Last week, however, the Kiev municipality approved a plan to build 28 hotels to accommodate the tens of thousands of visitors expected for soccer's 2012 European Championships. One of these hotels is planned to be set up on the Babi Yar site, now in a residential area of Kiev.

Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi has reportedly been interested in turning his city's remaining green space into real estate and is taking advantage of Euro 2012 to implement his plan, city sources said.

City councilman Sergei Melnik, one of the many who oppose the plan, on Tuesday leaked the details to the media.

In an unexpected and possibly accidental show of sanity, the United Nations has rejected the bid of Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni to be director of UNESCO. Hosni had threatened in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. Though book burning is not necessiarly the best qualification for a director of of a culture and education agency, in the crazy world of the UN, this remark propelled Hosni to the front rank of candidates.

However, at the last minute, in a fit of uncharacteristic rationality, Hosni's bid was defeated by the election of Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, who speaks several languages and does not advocate book burning. Both of these accomplishments should have disqualified her from running a UN cultural agency, but she managed to eke out a victory with difficulty, no doubt with the help of the international Zionist conspiracy. There were allegations of fraud, as well there might be, considering the unprecedent rationality of the result. The upset victory did not come easily, as a book burner is a strong contender to direct cultural affairs. It required five ballots before Hosni was finally defeated. No doubt, the Egyptians will fume at the machinations of the Zionists, who are evil people opposed to book burning.

A career diplomat from Bulgaria won a suspenseful and drawn-out race to lead the UN agency for culture and education on Tuesday, beating out an Egyptian candidate whose one-time threat to burn Israeli books had galvanized opposition.

In a fifth round of secret balloting Tuesday, Bulgaria's ambassador to France, Irina Bokova, defeated Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni for the leadership of UNESCO. The vote was 31 to 27, the organization's media office said.

Bokova, 57, will become UNESCO's first woman director general and the first from the former Soviet bloc. She was her country's foreign minister for a brief period in 1996-1997, and also helped negotiate Bulgaria's entry into the European Union and NATO. Her four-year term will begin November 15.

The race was tight and closely watched, with a flurry of secretive diplomatic efforts between each round, allegations of fraud and an uproar over Hosni's candidacy. Critics raised Egypt's contentious record of cultural censorship and accused him of being anti-Israel.

Bokova and Hosni tied on Monday night  and if Tuesday's vote had also been a draw, officials were prepared to pick a name at random from a bag.

The winner immediately sought to restore unity after the divisive race, speaking of her "respect and friendship" for Hosni and praising his campaign ideas. For months, Hosni had been considered the favorite.

"I never believed in the idea of a clash of civilizations," Bokova said, adding that her leadership of UNESCO would be geared at mutual understanding and cultural dialogue.

"UNESCO is about tolerance," she said.

Israeli congratulations

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy congratulated Bokova following her election, saying "Israel is convinced its fertile cooperation with UNESCO will continue and will even be extended and deepened."

Suspicions of fraud rose as the unexpectedly intense race unfolded at the agency's Paris headquarters.

A UNESCO delegate told The Associated Press that at least one person was ejected from the agency's building by UNESCO security staff for trying to bribe delegates on Monday. The official said several UNESCO member states had complained to the director general about the bribery attempts.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the eviction had been reported by senior members of UNESCO's administration.

Elizabeth Longworth, executive director of the office of UNESCO's director general, refused to discuss the issue on the telephone, saying she was too busy.

A UNESCO spokeswoman denied there was hard evidence of bribery. "There have been rumors to that effect," but no formal complaint has surfaced, said spokeswoman Sue Williams.

She said reports that someone was ejected Monday for unethical behavior had been investigated and found to be groundless. The agency disclosed no further details and UNESCO security service refused to discuss the issue.

The outcry against Hosni focused on his threat in the Egyptian parliament last year to personally burn any Israeli book he found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. Hosni, a painter who has been Egypt's culture minister for more than two decades, made the comment in an attempt to defend himself against charges by Egyptian lawmakers of being soft on Israel.

He later apologized for the remark, saying it was spontaneous and a manifestation of his anger at Palestinian suffering. But critics kept up the pressure, accusing him of several anti-Semitic comments over the years.

Bokova gained ground at the last minute as other candidates dropped out, partly because of efforts to find a strong challenger to Hosni.

Bokova speaks fluent English, Russian, Spanish and French. Her father was a Communist Party official who was editor-in-chief of the party newspaper. She joined the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry's UN and disarmament department in 1976, and witnessed Bulgaria's transformation from an Eastern bloc nation to an EU member.

Her win must be validated at the UNESCO general conference planned for October 15, the organization's media office said. She is to replace current leader Koichiro Matsuura of Japan on November 15.

The miqve was discovered inside the western hall of a splendid structure that is located just c. 20 meters from the Western Wall. Parts of the building were discovered in the past and the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently exposing another one of the three halls inside it. It is one of the most magnificent structures from the Second Temple period ever to be uncovered.

The edifice is built of very delicately dressed ashlar stones and the architectural decoration in it is of the highest quality. From an architectural and artistic standpoint there are similarities between this structure and the three magnificent compounds that King Herod built on the Temple Mount, in the Cave of the Patriarchs and at Allonei Mamre, and from which we can conclude the great significance that this building had in the Second Temple period.

In his book The War of the Jews, Josephus Flavius writes there was a government administrative center that was situated at the foot of the Temple. Among the buildings he points out in this region were the council house and the "Xistus"- the ashlar bureau. According to the Talmud it was in this bureau that the Sanhedrin  the Jewish high court at the time of the Second Temple  would convene. It may be that the superb structure the Israel Antiquities Authority is presently uncovering belonged to one of these two buildings.

According to archaeologist Alexander Onn, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "It is interesting to see that in the middle of the first century CE they began making changes in this magnificent structure  at that time it was no longer used as a government administrative building and a large miqve was installed inside its western hall where there were c. 11 steps that descend to the immersion pool. It seems that the city of Jerusalem grew in this period and it became necessary to provide for the increased ritual bathing needs of the pilgrims who came to the Temple in large numbers, especially during the three pilgrimage festivals (Shlosha Regalim). Immersing oneself in the miqve and maintaining ritual purity were an inseparable part of the Jewish way of life in this period, and miqve'ot were absolutely essential, especially in the region of the Temple."

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation acts to uncover the Jewish people's past at the Western Wall, and the miqve is further evidence of the deep ties the Jewish people have with Jerusalem and the Temple.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall and the holy places, pointed out the cooperation between the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Israel Antiquities Authority which have joined together in order to discover the rich history of Jerusalem there, while strictly ensuring that no excavations approach the Temple Mount compound, contact with which is forbidden by Halachic law.

donderdag 24 september 2009

Sheikh Khalifa's column considered the "dilemma of justice for Palestine without injustice to Israel." How can this be resolved? Here's a proposal, one sure to ignite opposition on both sides: When new communities for the Palestinian refugees are established within the PA- and Hamas-controlled areas -- and not before -- "Palestinian Heritage Houses" will also be constructed inside a number of Israeli communities or regions.

The Heritage Houses would preserve documents, photos, and recorded memories of Palestinians from that area. Supervised and security-assured visits by Palestinian families and school classes could be arranged with Israeli security agencies. The Heritage Houses would also be centers for teaching Israelis and Palestinians about each other and for promoting coexistence between the two peoples. The cost for such Palestinian Heritage Houses could be borne by Arab, Palestinian, Israeli, or foreign sources, as well as U.S. and European NGOs and governments. The massive funds contributed to UNRWA, the UN agency that perpetuates the refugee camps and their anti-Israel culture, could be diverted to the new Palestinian communities and to the Heritage Houses.

Recently announced plans for a new, upscale Palestinian settlement in the West Bank are impressive. The projected town, some six miles north of Ramallah, will one day house some 40,000 people, making it the same size as the Israeli settlement towns of Beitar and Modiin. The settlement is named Rawabi, and Qatar is a primary investor. Details are being negotiated with Israeli authorities on issues such as free access across Israeli-controlled areas.

Rawabi's slick website promises that the town's commercial activity will be launched from a hub of high-tech and research-related businesses in a variety of sectors. These local and international activities will provide rewarding jobs for Palestinians. Rawabi's commercial components will be seamlessly integrated with modern, comfortable and affordable housing as well as high-quality public services designed for Palestine's rapidly growing class of young professionals.

Meanwhile, in a pro-peace op-ed in the Washington Post this summer, Crown Prince Khalifa of Bahrain lamented that "far too many [Palestinians] live in refugee camps in deplorable conditions." Such camps exist in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon, but Khalifa's contention is particularly true for those living in areas under Hamas and Palestinian Authority control. Why are these Palestinians stuck in teeming refugee camps when new towns like Rawabi could be built for them?

With the help of Gulf countries, led by Qatar and Bahrain, any number of affordable and suitable communities and productive industrial zones could be built on land controlled by the PA and Hamas. Ten Rawabis should be built, including some on the scorched earth in Gaza where Jewish communities once existed. These towns could provide construction jobs and low-cost housing for both local Palestinians and refugee families, many of whom have been on the UNRWA dole for 60 years. In many cases their new homes would be just a few miles from homesteads where their grandparents claimed to have lived.

There are two problems with this plan. First, has any part of Rawabi been set aside for refugees? It's unlikely; reading between the lines of the marketing spiel, it is apparent that Rawabi was built to serve the housing and employment needs of the grown children of the Palestinian bourgeois and the yuppie offspring of Palestinian Authority officials on the West Bank.

Why is there so little concern among the elite of Palestine for the poorest of their fellow citizens? Because "Palestinian" is a relatively artificial category, and a weakly felt one. The track record dating back to 1947 provides little evidence that the Palestinians' new-found national identity trumps their clan, religious, political, or class differences. In Israel, we shuddered at the barbarism of the Fatah-Hamas fratricide in Gaza in 2006 -- the Palestinian "wakseh" or humiliation -- when Palestinian families were gunned down by other Palestinians and political opponents were thrown from tall buildings.

During the waves of immigration to Israel of Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry in the 1980s and 1990s, I recall dozens of my neighbors donating furniture to the new immigrants and assigning companions to help settle them in the neighborhood and maneuver through the absorption bureaucracy. Children were happy to tithe from their toys for the new kids on the block who arrived with nothing. If only such a spirit were evident among the Palestinians.

The Right of Return

Beyond the Palestinians' lack of community feeling lies the so-called "right of return." Palestinian leaders claim that each family has a right to reoccupy the land it held before Israel's war for independence. Settling refugees comfortably in other areas would weaken their claim to this "right," while keeping them in camps is a harsh but effective way to maintain pressure against Israel from the international community. What stands in the way of prosperity for Palestinian-controlled areas is the deep brainwashing of Palestinian children that there must be an actual physical return to their ancestral homes, along with an international and Israeli recognition of the "injustice" done to them.

The "right of return" frightens almost every Israeli. Not only would Jewish towns and communities in the West Bank's "settlement blocs" become targets for a flood of four generations' worth of refugees, but so would major Israeli cities and towns inside the 1949 armistice line (the "Green Line"). The city of Ashkelon (Majdal, to the Arabs) and the tony neighborhoods of north Tel Aviv (Sheikh Munis), for example, are built on the sites of Palestinian villages, according to both Palestinian and Israeli historians. Neighborhoods in Haifa and Ramla, to name but two, are coveted and claimed by the descendents of Palestinians who left in 1947 and 1948.

Palestinian Heritage Houses

Sheikh Khalifa's column considered the "dilemma of justice for Palestine without injustice to Israel." How can this be resolved? Here's a proposal, one sure to ignite opposition on both sides: When new communities for the Palestinian refugees are established within the PA- and Hamas-controlled areas -- and not before -- "Palestinian Heritage Houses" will also be constructed inside a number of Israeli communities or regions.

The Heritage Houses would preserve documents, photos, and recorded memories of Palestinians from that area. Supervised and security-assured visits by Palestinian families and school classes could be arranged with Israeli security agencies. The Heritage Houses would also be centers for teaching Israelis and Palestinians about each other and for promoting coexistence between the two peoples. The cost for such Palestinian Heritage Houses could be borne by Arab, Palestinian, Israeli, or foreign sources, as well as U.S. and European NGOs and governments. The massive funds contributed to UNRWA, the UN agency that perpetuates the refugee camps and their anti-Israel culture, could be diverted to the new Palestinian communities and to the Heritage Houses.

The Qatari investors in Rawabi, and Bahrain's Shaikh Khalifa, deserve credit for kick-starting the imaginations of those who seek a realistic and pragmatic end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not the perpetuation of a 62-year-old grudge.

------------------- Lenny Ben-David served as a senior diplomat in Israel's embassy in Washington. Today he is a public-affairs consultant and blogs at www.lennybendavid.com.

The following is a transcript from the children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers:

Nassur: "There won't be any Jews or Zionists, if Allah wills. They'll be erased."Saraa: "They'll be slaughtered." (Manhurin naher)Nassur: "And just like we will visit the Qaaba [in Mecca]... everyone will visit Jerusalem."

[Seven-year old Palestinian child on phone tells how his father, a member of the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades, "died as a Shahid (Martyr)."]

Nassur to child on phone: "What do you want to do to the Jews who shot your father?"Child on phone: "I want to kill them."Saraa: "We don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land."Nassur: "We want to slaughter (Nidbah-hom) them, so they will be expelled from our land, right?"Saraa: "Yes. That's right. We will expel them from our land using all means."Nassur: "And if they don't want [to go] peacefully, by words or talking, we'll have to [do it] by slaughter." (Shaht)

Egypt's culture minister says a Western conspiracy "cooked up in New York" prevented him from becoming the next head of the UN's agency for culture and education.

Farouk Hosny says "European countries and the world's Jews" wanted him to lose.

He spoke to reporters at the Cairo airport Wednesday upon his return from Paris.

A Bulgarian diplomat on Tuesday became the first woman to lead UNESCO, beating out Hosny in a close race.

For months, Hosny had been considered the favorite, but critics raised Egypt's record of cultural censorship and highlighted the minister's threat last year to burn Israeli books - a comment he later apologized for.

Irina Bokova's candidacy took off late in the race as delegates sought a consensus figure.

Israel finally won one last week in an international human rights court.

On Thursday, the Council of Europe's European Court of Human Rights upheld a French ruling that it was illegal and discriminatory to boycott Israeli goods, and that making it illegal to call for a boycott of Israeli goods did not constitute a violation of one's freedom of expression.

The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg, has some 47 member states and is independent of the European Union. The court is made up of one judge from each member state, and the rulings of the court carry moral weight throughout Europe.

On Thursday the court ruled by a vote of 6-1 that the French court did not violate the freedom of expression of the Communist mayor of the small French town of Seclin, Jean-Claude Fernand Willem, who in October 2002 announced at a town hall meeting that he intended to call on the municipality to boycott Israeli products.

Jews in the region filed a complaint with the public prosecutor, who decided to prosecute Willem for "provoking discrimination on national, racial and religious grounds." Willem was first acquitted by the Lille Criminal Court, but that decision was overturned on appeal in September 2003 and he was fined €1,000.

His appeal to a higher French court was unsuccessful, and as a result he petitioned the European Court of Human rights in March 2005, saying his call for a boycott of Israeli products was part of a legitimate political debate, and that his freedom of expression had been violated.

The court, made up of judges from Denmark, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Macedonia and the Czech Republic ruled that interference with the former mayor's freedom of expression was needed to protect the rights of Israeli producers.

According to a statement issued by the court on Thursday, the court held the view that Willem was not convicted for his political opinions, "but for inciting the commission of a discriminatory, and therefore punishable, act. The Court further noted that, under French law, the applicant was not entitled to take the place of the governmental authorities by declaring an embargo on products from a foreign country, and moreover that the penalty imposed on him had been relatively moderate." The one dissenting opinion was written by the Czech judge.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor hailed the ruling Sunday, saying it provided important ammunition for those challenging on legal grounds calls frequently heard in Europe for a boycott of Israeli products, as well as calls for a boycott of Israeli academia.

"It is now clear that in every country in Europe there is a precedent for calling boycotts of Israeli goods a violation of the law," Palmor said. "This is an important precedent, one that says very clearly that boycott calls are discriminatory. We hope this will help us push back against all the calls for boycotts of Israeli goods."

Leading Democratic and Republican congressmen expressed outrage following a report in Monday's Jerusalem Post that Saudi Arabia has been violating its promise to Washington to stop enforcing the Arab League boycott of Israel.

Democrat Howard Berman of California, Chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Post from Washington that he had read the report in Monday's paper.

"This is a very disturbing report," Berman said, "particularly in light of the fact that US officials assured us four years ago that Saudi Arabia would abandon the boycott as the condition for its entry into the World Trade Organization."

Berman declared that he would take action on the issue. "I intend to pursue this matter with the administration," he said.

Across the aisle, Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, who chairs the House Republican Conference, also criticized Riyadh for its duplicity.

"Saudi Arabia's disregard of its 2005 pledge to end the boycott against Israel is unacceptable," Pence told the Post."Congress and the administration must hold Saudi Arabia accountable. The United States cannot stand by and continue to witness this mistreatment towards the peace-loving people of Israel," he said."Ending the Arab League boycott and establishing trade relationships with Israel would help foster much needed peace in the region," Pence added.

Earlier this week, the Post revealed that the Saudis have been steadily intensifying their enforcement of the anti-Israel trade embargo in recent years, despite a November 2005 pledge to Washington to desist in exchange for admittance into the World Trade Organization.

A review of Commerce Department figures conducted by the Post found that the number of boycott-related and restrictive trade-practice requests received by American companies from Saudi Arabia has increased in each of the past two years, rising by more than 76 percent between 2006 and 2008.

US law bars American companies from complying with such demands, and requires them to report any boycott-related requests to the federal government.

The Saudi boycott of Israeli-made goods is part of the decades-old Arab League effort to isolate and weaken the Jewish state economically.

Washington has been attempting to get Riyadh to improve relations with Israel, thus far without success.

Many restrictions on the use of force against aggressors make no moral sense.

By PAUL H. ROBINSON

Last week the United Nations issued a report painting the Israelis as major violators of international law in the three-week Gaza war that began in December 2008. While many find the conclusion a bit unsettling or even bizarre, the report's conclusion may be largely correct.

This says more about international law, however, than it does about the propriety of Israel's conduct. The rules of international law governing the use of force by victims of aggression are embarrassingly unjust and would never be tolerated by any domestic criminal law system. They give the advantage to unlawful aggressors and thereby undermine international justice, security and stability.

Article 51 of the U.N. Charter forbids all use of force except that for "self-defense if an armed attack occurs." Thus the United Kingdom's 1946 removal of sea mines that struck ships in the Strait of Corfu was held to be an illegal use of force by the International Court of Justice, even though Albania had refused to remove its mines from this much used international waterway. Israel's raid on Uganda's Entebbe Airport in 1976to rescue the victims of an airplane hijacking by Palestinian terroristswas also illegal under Article 51.

Domestic criminal law restricts the use of defensive force in large part because the law prefers that police be called, when possible, to do the defending. Force is authorized primarily to keep defenders safe until law enforcement officers arrive. Since there are no international police to call, the rules of international law should allow broader use of force by victims of aggression. But the rules are actually narrower.

Imagine that a local drug gang plans to rob your store and kill your security guards. There are no police, so the gang openly prepares its attack in the parking lot across the street, waiting only for the cover of darkness to increase its tactical advantage. If its intentions are clear, must you wait until the time the gang picks as being most advantageous to it?

American criminal law does not require that you wait. It allows force if it is "immediately necessary" (as stated in the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code, on which all states model their own codes), even if the attack is not yet imminent. Yet international law does require that you wait. Thus, in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel's use of force against Egypt, Syria and Jordanneighbors that were preparing an attack to destroy itwas illegal under the U.N. Charter's Article 51, which forbids any use of force until the attack actually "occurs."

Now imagine that your next-door neighbor allows his house to be used by thugs who regularly attack your family. In the absence of a police force able or willing to intervene, it would be quite odd to forbid you to use force against the thugs in their sanctuary or against the sanctuary-giving neighbor.

Yet that is what international law does. From 1979-1981 the Sandinista government of Nicaragua unlawfully supplied arms and safe haven to insurgents seeking to overthrow the government of El Salvador. Yet El Salvador had no right under international law to use any force to end Nicaragua's violations of its sovereignty. The U.S. removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001 was similarly illegal under the U.N. Charter (although it earned broad international support).

An aggressor pressing a series of attacks is protected by international law in between attacks, and it can take comfort that the law allows force only against its raiders, not their support elements. In 1987, beginning with a missile strike on a Kuwaiti tanker, the Iranians launched attacks on shipping that were staged from their offshore oil platforms in the Persian Gulf. While it was difficult to catch the raiding parties in the act (note the current difficulty in defending shipping against the Somali pirates), the oil platforms used to stage the attacks could be and were attacked by the U.S. Yet these strikes were held illegal by the International Court of Justice.

Social science has increasingly shown that law's ability to gain compliance is in large measure a product of its credibility and legitimacy with its public. A law seen as unjust promotes resistance, undermines compliance, and loses its power to harness the powerful forces of social influence, stigmatization and condemnation.

Because international law has no enforcement mechanism, it is almost wholly dependent upon moral authority to gain compliance. Yet the reputation international law will increasingly earn from its rules on the use of defensive force is one of moral deafness.

True, it will not always be the best course for a victim of unlawful aggression to use force to defend or deter. Sometimes the smart course is no response or a merely symbolic one. But every state ought to have the lawful choice to do what is necessary to protect itself from aggression.

Rational people must share the dream of a world at peace. Thus the U.N. Charter's severe restrictions on use of force might be understandableif only one could stop all use of force by creating a rule against it. Since that's not possible, the U.N. rule is dangerously naive. By creating what amount to "aggressors' rights," the restrictions on self-defense undermine justice and promote unlawful aggression. This erodes the moral authority of international law and makes less likely a future in which nations will turn to it, rather than to force.

_____________

Mr. Robinson, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, is the co-author of "Law Without Justice: Why Criminal Law Does Not Give People What They Deserve" (Oxford, 2006).

Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has issued what he considers friendly advice to Israel: He urged US President Barack Obama to make it clear that if the IAF tries to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities via Iraqi airspace, the US Air Force will shoot down the Israeli jets.

"We are not exactly impotent little babies," Brzezinski told The Daily Beast in an interview published Sunday. "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren't just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."

The USS Liberty was a US Navy technical research ship accidentally struck by the IAF on the fourth day of the Six Day War, after being misidentified as an Egyptian warship.

Brzezinski, who was former president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, endorsed Barack Obama's presidential campaign. However, he has no role in the current administration.

So much for "unbreakable bonds" and "tough love." I wonder what J street will have to say about that. One hopes that nobody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to respond to this stupid statement in kind. Brzezinski will be remembered as the fellow responsible for losing Iran in 1979.

Hamas on Sunday responded to the announcement of a tripartite meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Barack Obama, announced by the White House Saturday overnight.

In a sermon for the Eid el-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told Gazans congregating in a stadium in Gaza City that "no one has the right to give up on Jerusalem or the [Palestinian] refugees. Not the PLO and no any other factor can sign an agreement hurting the Palestinian people's principles and rights. Any agreement reached will not be respected by our people."

Haniyeh also said the offers presented this week by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell were "no different than offers by previous US administrations" and were intended to bring about a compromise with Israel at the expense of Palestinians' rights and Jerusalem, since, Haniyeh said, "settlement blocs will remain in place."

Referring to the fact that this holiday is the first Eid el-Fitr since Operation Cast Lead, carried by Israel last January, Haniyeh called the feast "the holiday of victory and perseverance."

In Saturday's statement, Mitchell called the scheduled meeting "another sign of the president's deep commitment to comprehensive peace that he wants to personally engage at this juncture."

The meetings will take place in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

The Education Ministry will be reexamining a new Hebrew-language history textbook published by the Zalman Shazar Center that was approved for 11th- and 12th-grade classes. The textbook gives expression to the Palestinian perspective on the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic), which is the Palestinians' term for what happened to them in the War of Independence.

The textbook, "Nationalism: Building a State in the Middle East," was published several weeks ago. It contains a passage stating "the Palestinians and the Arab states contended that most of the [Palestinian] refugees were civilians who were attacked and expelled from their homes by the armed Jewish forces, which instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing, contrary to the proclamations of peace in the Declaration of Independence."

The subject of the Palestinian refugee problem has appeared in the school history curriculum for years. In the new textbook, the chapter dealing with the issue begins with a set of "facts" on which there is almost no dispute: Many Palestinians left the country during the War of Independence, whether because they believed "they would return as victors with the invading [Arab] armies" or because of "the fear of the Israeli forces," and "many others were expelled from their places of residence."

The refugee problem, the chapter says, "became the focus of a number of political and historiographic [relating to the writing of history] controversies" on the causes for the flow of refugees, estimated at several hundred thousand people.

The book presents the Palestinian and the Jewish-Israeli points of view side by side. Immediately following the Palestinian narrative, the Zionist narrative states that "for years, the State of Israel has contended it called upon the Palestinians to stay, and they fled their villages and towns during the war because they were abandoned by their leadership, because of Arab propaganda about atrocities and due to the instructions of the invading [Arab] armies."

In summarizing the two versions, the chapter says: "Later historical research has raised a complex picture in which alongside the abandonment of cities there were also incidents of organized expulsion, such as in Lod and Ramle," and that "the flight from the villages frequently occurred following attacks on them by Jewish forces."

The chapter gives three notable sources in its description of events, including Yohanan Cohen, who was a company commander in the War of Independence and later served as a member of Knesset. Cohen recounts that "not only was the flight of the Arabs directed and carried out at the initiative of the Arab leadership, but also the leadership of the Jewish community tried more than once to stop it and prevent it." The second point of view is from the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, who wrote that 13 operations, carried out, he contended, in the context of so-called Plan Dalet [Pand D] were a historic opportunity for the Jews to cleanse the country of Arabs, and to deny the Arab presence simply by wiping it out. The third source, Benny Morris of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said Plan Dalet gave certain commanders of the prestate Jewish Haganah a free hand to empty strategically key areas of their inhabitants, adding that each unit interpreted and carried out the instructions as it understood them and in accordance with local circumstances. There was no decision, he said, to expel the Arabs from the territory of the Jewish State.

A Jerusalem-area history teacher said that students cannot be taught the way the textbook presents the material, as they are unable to distinguish between Arab propaganda and objective analysis, adding that the "claims" of the State of Israel cannot be presented as having equal value as those of Arab propagandists. Similarly, the teacher said, Nazi propaganda could not be presented side by side with the Jewish view of the Holocaust. Another teacher from the center of the country, said, however, that "a substantial part of the study of history involves the expression of as many points of view as possible."

Zvi Yekutiel, the director of the Zalman Shazar Center, which published the textbook, said: "We were asked by the Education Ministry to make more than a few changes in the book, but with respect to this specific chapter, nothing was said. On the contrary, the ministry's specific instructions were to present points in controversy, so the students can confront them and form an opinion." Yekutiel added that "on second consideration, the anger that the chapter engendered can be understood. If they tell us to revise a few pages, it won't be a problem and the changes will be made in the second edition. Textbooks need to reflect the broadest consensus. I work for the mainstream."

Tsafrir Goldberg, who was responsible for the chapter on the Palestinian refugees, said yesterday: "The publisher has the right to make any decision." He added that "as a researcher in the field of education, I believe one of the ways to develop historical thought is to confront the student with conflicting points of view." He said he did not present the contentions regarding ethnic cleansing as fact but rather as a Palestinian version of events. "It is not extreme," he added,"in my view, to know that someone thinks differently than you do."